Saturday, 21 March 2009

Joe's Essential Guide to 90's Dance, Part 1

We all know that the 90s was the greatest era for dance music, so I'm gonna start this regular feature here on Ilictronix, and keep going until there are literally no 90s dance tracks left (or until I just can't be bothered anymore).

For every installment of this series, I'll be posting two tracks. One from the early 90s, the other from the late 90s. So I'll start with a single by The Shamen which came out in 1992, "Ebeneezer Goode". Now, it is widely accepted that chanting phrases like "E's are good, E's are good!" will inevitably get you chucked off Radio 1 for good, but this is where the clever part comes in.

Rather than just admitting the lyrics were about taking ecstasy (as most did in the rave scene back then), Shamen's singer Mr C spun a bit of top secret code on top of this awesome synthpop rave hook (like early Prodigy, but less sample based), claiming the song was about a guy who's always out for a good time named Ebeneezer Goode, whose friends call him Eezer. Thus, they managed to actually get away with the whole "Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode" line.

Now, as much as I disapprove of songs that condone the use of drugs, the sheer irony of the fact that this track made number 1 during the BBC's drug awareness week almost makes up for it. A great philosopher once wrote "naughty, naughty, very naughty..."

And for today's late 90's track, one of house's greatest vinyl-jockeys, DJ Sneak. He's done remixes for Le Knight Club, Stardust and generally everyone else in house music, he's been namechecked by Daft Punk as a major influence in their track "Teachers", and he never fails to produce quality funky house tunes.

This one, released on Strictly Rhythm Records (a great house label if you havent checked it out yet), is a deep, disco laced dancefloor stomper. And Ian Pooley does a fine remix.